MUSIC REVIEW: Crash Test Dummies at Infinity Music Hall

 

Crash Test Dummies

Infinity Music Hall & Bistro

December 11, 2010

 

Review by Abby Wood

 

(NORFOLK, Conn., December 11, 2010) – Alternative rock band Crash Test Dummies is best known for its smash hit “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” off the 1993 album God Shuffled His Feet. It is perplexing that the band never had more hits of the same caliber in the U.S. (despite other successes in its homeland of Canada and abroad)—most of its songs feature the same elements that made that single so compelling in the first place: strangely profound lyrics and lead singer Brad Roberts’s distinctive baritone-bass vocals.

 

For instance, the band opened up its show at the Infinity Music Hall & Bistro on Saturday night with the title track of that same 1993 album, a story-song about questioning God’s authority and the existence of an afterlife:

 

God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him

 

 

Roberts’s deep pitch added just the right amount of poignancy to lyrics that may sound inane from the mouth of another singer. The same was true of tracks like “Superman’s Song” and “Two Knights and Maidens”—Roberts raised the lyrics to a level of seriousness (or hilarity, as was the case with a cover of “Jingle Bells” off of their 2002 Christmas album, Jingle All the Way) that is not present when they are simply read.

 

Accompanying Roberts on stage was Ellen Reid, an original band member, on back-up vocals and James Reid on acoustic guitar. Ellen’s voice can be described as operatic in the way that it bounces up, down, sideways, and back again both tonally and dynamically in one breath. Her talents were showcased best on the few tunes she sang on her own, including “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead,” a cover the band recorded in 1995 for the soundtrack of the film Dumb and Dumber.

 

Put together, Roberts and Reid are vocally experimental. On more romantic numbers like “Swimming in Your Ocean” and “And It’s Beautiful,” the pair would start on the same note, and while Roberts fell further and further down the scale (further than most people can go), Reid would climb higher and higher. They didn’t do this at the same pace, and sometimes not even singing the same tune; what resulted was a lovely sound that twist and turned through interesting disharmonies. Reid would also often chime in with energetic “doo-doo’s” reminiscent of “The Girl From Ipanema” or yodel-like crescendos, while Roberts would burst into what sounded like scat-infused tribal chants.

 

Roberts was also quite the entertainer, having no problem proclaiming that he was “generally a sarcastic asshole in between numbers;” which he was. He garnered laughs for his raunchy comments and dirty jokes, chided the audience for making him have to motion for applause after a solo, and made a point of announcing that they now had Crash Test Dummies panties for sale.

This all led up nicely to the closing number of the night, “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm,” which Roberts unabashedly admitted to calling “the money track.” Perhaps it isn’t so bad after all that the group's other songs didn’t top the charts like this one—they may not have had the opportunity to experiment as much as they do now, and Roberts may not have been allowed to be such an amusing jerk on stage…the alt-rock world will never know.

 

 

 

Berkshire Living editorial assistant Abby Wood reviews music for www.berkshireliving.com.